Eisenhower Dollars - Mintage History

Eisenhower Dollars – A short history of a America's last Cartwheel Dollar​

In 1969, with the passing of World War II hero and former President Dwight Eisenhower, and with the advent of the Apollo Moon shot, the US Congress was looking for a memorial of both events. The US mint hadn't minted any Large dollars since the failed 1964 mint run of Peace Dollars that were all melted. And over the next 5 years, silver dollars were becoming rarer. This was particularly problematic for the Las Vegas Gambling Casinos and gaming industry. By October of 1969 Congress was prepared to allow the US Mint to release a new dollar with both Eisenhower and the Apollo XI memorial being prepresented and Bills were introduced to do so. The final bill wasn't passed by Congress until the end of 1970. The mint wasn't left much time to get the Eisenhower dollars designed or produced.


But there were a lot of problems to overcome. First, in 1965 the US government converted most coinage to Copper and Nickle clad coins because the costs of silver pushed the metal past the point of being economically viable for coinage use. With the dime, and quarter converted to clad by 1965 there was little reason for the dollar size coin to be full cartwheel sized other than the needs of the gaming industry. Little experimentation was done with clad coins of this size and the results weren't always asthetic. Particularly, the circulating Eisenhower's showed clanks and marks very easier and the ability to mint these coins with the correct pressure was something the mint had to learn by doing. Additionally, many proof an mint examples were made with a 40% silver composit similar to the Kenedy half dollars.



Illustration 2 1971 Eisenhower Reverse Silver Uncirculated


Illustration 1 Eisenhower 1971 Silver Uncirculated Obverse

Although Mint Chief Engraver Frank Gasparro had some start time in developing concepts for the new coin, the mint was still in a hurry to bring the Ikes to the public. The normal public requests and design competitions were dispensed with and Gasparro himself brought the design to fruition. the process itself, however, seemed to be a bit haphazzard, and the mint seemed to be learning on the job meaning that several subtle design changes were made to the coins as they got closer to production and through out the production run. For coin collectors, this means that today we have several varieties to collect and new ones seem to be identified as time goes on.


The familiar basic design includes a rather impressive portrait of Dwight Eisenhower on face of the coin and the reverse had a derivation of the Apollo Mission Emblem. America was all but space crazy at this time with the rousing success of the Apollo moon walks and people immediately identified the familiar NASA iconography of the Eisenhower reverse. The unusual reverse perspective of the Eagle on the moon looking out towards earth mimicked many of the new photographs and television images that had been plasted on newspapers worldwide the summer before.


Illustration 3: Apollo 11 Insignia






The coins finally started rolling off the presses on November 1st, 1971 and as usually many were scooped up and saved for their novelty and collectability. Aside from the circulating examples, the mint also sold the authorized silver clad designs in proof and in circulating packages. The uncirculated silvers are affectionately known as Blue Ikes for the color of the plasitc tokens and envelopes they were sold. The silver proofs were know as Brown Ikes because of the box they came in. Between the Silver and the Clads, the proofs and the circulating strikes, and added to this that in 1973, only to resume circulation 1974 the mint also sold clad proofs in the proof sets and the separate silver proofs, and then starting in 1975 through 1977 there were bicentennial versions of the coin, both silver and clad, the Ike mintage is one of the most diversified, if not confusing of any coinage the United States ever created. And to make matters further complicated, by 1973 it became apparent that the public had no interest in using for comerce or savings a big nickel alloy coin, and so circulating versions weren't produced in 1973 or 1974. All non-proof versions of these years came from mint sets. By 1979 the coin was replaced by the new small sized dollar coin that we have today.

1971 Ike Mintages and Varieties​

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The initial minting of the Eisenhower Dollar breaks down to 3 basic groups and several varieties within these groups. The mint distributed a clad circulating version from Philadelphia and Denver and the Silver versions from San Fransico. The Philadelphia mintage was 47,799,000 coins and the Denver mintage was 68,587,424 coins. The odd number is not explained. San Fransisco produced a shade less than 7 million silver uncirculated coins and about 4.26 million proofs. One of the major charactoristics of the 1971 run was that the mint had to make minor alterations of the design for smooth production. This resulted in at least one major variety out of Denver called the Friendly Eagle Variety (FEV), many of which were actually struck on proof planchets which were excess from the west coast proof production.​

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According to the research done by the Ike Group, it seems that the FEV variety was likely the first design intended for the standard strikes for all the clad Ikes and the silver uncirculated strikes. But after testing in Philedelphia, it was modified because of production problems. The Denver mint, however, started early, likely with spare older single chamber presses that most normally would be used for gold coinage production. To my knowledge, there was no standard gold coin production at the time so you can only imagine how anxious Denver must have been about the new cartwheel dollars and getting the coins to Las Vegas if they push these presses into action. With only the original FEV design available, they produced perhaps 500,000 1971-D FEVs and about 10% of those seem to be minted on proof planchets that were extras from the San Fransico Mint. There has also been a debate as to whether this Friendly Eagle Variety is a Variety or a pattern. The consensus is that it is a varity but you may find in the literature the coin referred to as FEP as well as FEV. Articles on the variety have been written in the coin press including July 2007 issue of NUMISMATIST. ​

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The FEV can be difficult to spot for the beginner and you need a very decent picture and a good loupe to spot the coin. Generally, the design is completely different than the standard low relief coinage. But this is in no way obvious to the casual observer. So there is a good list of differences that one can spot to identify the variety.​

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1. [FONT=Times, serif]The Earth is round. Standard 1971 Ikes have a definite flatening in the earth on the left upper quadrant of the coin.[/FONT]
2. [FONT=Times, serif]The Gulf of Mexico is spaced out between Florida and Mexico, and has a rounder shape. In fact, Florida comes down out of North America in a more vertical angle than a standard 1971 IKE.[/FONT]
3. [FONT=Times, serif]The Caribian Islands are chained together in a line, with one Island below the chain while on a standard IKE they look like 3 islands in a triangular configuration.[/FONT]
4. [FONT=Times, serif]Florida, as mentioned above, is at a right angle to North America, pointing straight south.[/FONT]
5. [FONT=Times, serif]America is in high relief[/FONT]
6. [FONT=Times, serif]There is a missing brow line in the Eagles head giving it a more friendly look.[/FONT]
7. [FONT=Times, serif]The Eagles chest feathers are more regular and not flared.[/FONT]
8. [FONT=Times, serif]The tail feathers have a subtle difference. The top two feathers have are missing an extra line of separation that was added to the standard design.[/FONT]
9. [FONT=Times, serif]The Crater under the claws has 2 extra flow lines between the N and the E in “ONE”.[/FONT]
10. [FONT=Times, serif]The easiest to identify difference, in my opinion, is that in the FEV the top of first “L” in DOLLAR on the reverse is cradled between two flow lines. [/FONT]
11. [FONT=Times, serif]Finally, I've never seen this, but the Ike Group documents that on high magnification there is an iconic representation of the Apollo reentry vehical near the left side of the earth that looks like 2 lines joined together like an arrow.[/FONT]

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Illustration 41971-D Eisenhower FEV Reverse from the Safir Collection

 

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http://www.coinresource.com/guide/photograde/pg_$1Ike.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Dollar
http://www.coinfacts.com/silver_dollars/eisenhower_dollars/eisenhower_dollars.html

 

Small correction, the 1973 business strikes were mint set only, but the 1974's were not. The 1974's were actually struck for circulation.

 

I believe you but do you have documentation for that?

Ruben

 

Red Book only indicates the '73's as being included solely in mint sets. Nothing to indicate that the '74's were mint set only issues.

 

This place oozes knowledge. Great post Ruben!

 

That checks out with coinfacts as well. I must have misunderstood what I was reading. I'll correct it ASAP

Ruben

 

fixed

 

wow very nice post! thanks for all the info. I started an Ike collection right after my Kennedy collection, but never really researched the Ike dollars much. Very informative!

 

I've started collecting Proof Ike Dollars. Does anyone feel that collecting a silver over a clad dollar is worth it?

Greg

 

It depends but the ones that are really expensive are the Gem State MS coins and the varieties like the FEV.

Ruben

 

I got to get back to this, I've been so distracted... sorry.

 

..

 

eh - why not. You spend so much time writing it you might as well bump it sometimes...

 

Well deserved.

 

I'd like to hear Cladking chime in on Ikes- I am a fan of that guy

 

Great thread!

I'm not sure what I can add to it except that Ikes are really a great collectible and grossly underrated. Gems are pretty elusive even for the common dates and comprise only between about .3% and 2% of the mint set coins dependent on date. They tend to be much scarcer in rolls. Proofs are very attractive usually and the 40% uncs can be found quite nice as well. If you have the time and energy then a Gem set can be acquired raw but most people should stick to near-Gems or choice Unc. If you have the money then by all means collect the higher grades. Some of these are extremely scarce in the highest grades.

TTT

 

There is one thing I might add that's not widely known. In 1976 the mint came to believe at the last second that they were required to produce 14 million of the 40% unc three piece sets. With time fast running out they were forced to coin these on high speed presses and dump them in 55 gal drums. Very few of these were sold due to the poor quality and most of those sold went almost straight to the melting pot since the mint inadvertantly allowed the sale price to get very close to melt value.

These were issued in pliofilm without the white stripe and are not often seen.

The bulk were melted in 1982 by the mint.

 

Love the attention Ikes have been getting lately on this forum and great write up Ruben.....:hail:

 

I went to the bank today and got 20 of these big dollars. Are they worth anything?